Fifty yards behind them emerges a single picket; after him come three more videttes, the same distance apart.  Fifty yards behind the last rides “the advance”—­a guard of twenty-five picked men.  No commission among “Morgan’s Men” was more eagerly sought than a place on that guard of hourly risk and honor.  Behind it trot still three more videttes, at intervals of one hundred yards, and just that interval behind the last of these ride Morgan’s Men, the flower of Kentucky’s youth, in columns of fours—­Colonel Hunt’s regiment in advance, the colors borne by Renfrew the Silent in a brilliant Zouave jacket studded with buttons of red coral.  In the rear rumble two Parrot guns, affectionately christened the “Bull Pups.”

Skirting the next woodland ran a cross-road.  Down one way gallops Dan, and down the other lumbers Rebel Jerry, each two hundred yards.  A cry rings from vidette to vidette behind them and back to the guard.  Two horsemen spur from the “advance” and take the places of the last two videttes, while the videttes in front take and keep the original formation until the column passes that cross-road, when Dean and Dillon gallop up to their old places in the extreme front again.  Far in front, and on both flanks, are scouting parties, miles away.

This was the way Morgan marched.

Yankees ahead!  Not many, to be sure—­no more numerous than two or three to one; so back fall the videttes and forward charges that advance guard like a thunderbolt, not troubling the column behind.  Wild yells, a clattering of hoofs, the crack of pistol-shots, a wild flight, a merry chase, a few riderless horses gathered in from the fleeing Yankees, and the incident is over.

Ten miles more, and many hostile bayonets gleam ahead.  A serious fight, this, perhaps—­so back drops the advance, this time as a reserve; up gallops the column into single rank and dismounts, while the flank companies, deploying as skirmishers, cover the whole front, one man out of each set of fours and the corporals holding the horses in the rear.  The “Bull Pups” bark and the Rebel yell rings as the line—­the files two yards apart—­“a long flexible line curving forward at each extremity”—­slips forward at a half run.  This time the Yankees charge.

From every point of that curving line pours a merciless fire, and the charging men in blue recoil—­all but one. (War is full of grim humor.) On comes one lone Yankee, hatless, red-headed, pulling on his reins with might and main, his horse beyond control, and not one of the enemy shoot as he sweeps helplessly into their line.  A huge rebel grabs his bridle-rein.

“I don’t know whether to kill you now,” he says, with pretended ferocity, “or wait till the fight is over.”

“For God’s sake, don’t kill me at all!” shouts the Yankee.  “I’m a dissipated character, and not prepared to die.”

Shots from the right flank and rear, and the line is thrown about like a rope.  But the main body of the Yankees is to the left.